S3 
C9T 



) f if ^4- 






^^^^m 




Oass__4L_X<-i_ 
Rnnk ■ ^ 



s^ 



/ 



(^9 



THE 



MERITS 



THOMAS W. DORR 









GEORGE BANCROFT, 



THEY ARE POLITICALLY CONNECTED. 



BY A CITIZEN OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



0econb (Kbitiott. 




BOSTON: 
1844. 

PRINTED BY JOHN H. EASTBURN, 



BEDDING'S, STATE STREET. 
Price. 6 1-4 Cents. 



^6 S 



G"^^ 



TO THE 



PEOPLE 



MASSACHUSETTS 



The late insurrection in Rhode Island, which was 
crushed by the vigor and firmness of the people of that 
State, and the fate of the principal leader in that insurrec- 
tion have derived no small importance among us, of late, 
from the opinions and interference of two of our prominent 
politicians, one of whom has been and the other of whom 
seeks to be Governor of this Commonwealth. Of course 
I allude here to Mr. Morton and Mr. Bancroft. The evil 
which such men as they can do, if they meddle with a 
matter of this kind from questionable motives, is vast. 
That evil becomes incalculable, when, by a plausible use 
of certain familiar and captivating general principles, the 
public vision is distorted from an accurate perception of 
the truth, and the passions become stimulated, for tempo- 
rary purposes, to an attack upon the foundations of consti- 
tutional liberty. When such a tendency is apparent, it 
becomes every man who can present the truth to his fel- 
low citizens, to present it boldly ; to call things by their 
right names ; to look the false in the face and to pronounce 
it what it is. 

It is quite true that we in Massachusetts have no special 
business with the affairs of Rhode Island ; and that men 
m our State will intermeddle with the criminal justice of 
that community, is one of the chief complaints to be made 
against both the persons above named and some others. 
But when a faction or a party in this Commonwealth 



4 



chooses to make the internal affairs of another State the 
means of exciting the hatred of our own people against 
their neighbors, relying upon the prejudices thus aroused 
as the machinery by which to collect votes for themselves 
against those who do not join in the same warfare, it is 
time to appeal to the sober sense of the people on the sub- 
ject. It is time, too, that in comity and justice to a gallant 
people, who have rendered a great service to the cause of 
constitutional freedom, we had disabused our minds of the 
specious nonsense that is current among us concerning 
their affairs. The people of Rhode Island are abused, in- 
sulted and hated by a faction among us, while they deserve 
the respect and admiration of every true friend of freedom ; 
for theirs is the merit of having put down an insurrection, 
while at the same time they have not been wanting to the 
great cause of Liberty — a task, which has been well said 
to involve the exercise of the greatest faculties and the 
most exalted public virtues, that any people can possess. 
Much is due to such a people ; much is also due to our 
own correct moral judgments. 

I have made use of the names of Mr. Morton and Mr. 
Bancroft, because they are the leaders of the party that 
endorses and promulgates the doctrine set up in justifica- 
tion of the doings of Thomas W. Dorr. Both of these 
leaders have declared their approbation of this doctrine — 
Mr. Morton, in a speech delivered at a mass meeting in 
Providence on the 4th of September last, called to effect 
the liberation of Dorr from prison — and Mr. Bancroft in 
a letter addressed to the same meeting. I have seen no 
authentic report of Mr. Morton's speech, from which quo- 
tations can be made, by which he would be bound ; but 
the leading paper of his party represented him as saying, 
in effect, that a majority of the people have at any time, 
without the action of the existing government, the poM^er 
and the right, to establish a constitution ; and that this 
was what Dorr and his associates did. Mr. Morton also 
asserted this doctrine in his famous "clam-bake letter," in 
1842, which lies before me. The letter of Mr. Bancroft 
will be given to the reader in full, in a subsequent part of 
these pages. A concise statement of the various proceed- 
ings in Rhode Island with regard to the Constitution of 
the State, is all that is here necessary. 

The State of Rhode Island, after the American Revolu- 
tion, until the year 1842, had no other written constitu- 
tion than the charter granted by King Charles II. to the 



colony ill 1663. This charter and some other laws had 
been recognized by the people and by the Supreme Court 
of the United States as the fundamental law of the State. 
One of these laws gave the right of suffrage only to such 
inhabitants of the State as possessed a freehold estate in 
land of the value of $134 and upwards, who were hence 
called "freeholders." The State went on prosperously 
and contentedly without any other Constitution, until a 
gradual change of the mass of the people from an agricul- 
tural to a manufacturing and commercial population, ren- 
dered an extension of suffrage desirable, expedient and 
just. Many persons of all classes took an interest in the 
subject. It was a work of time, however, to accustom a 
people, who had lived for nearly two centuries happily 
and freely under their old constitution, to the idea of a 
change. But such a change was inevitable, and it was 
right that it should be made. Among those who under- 
took the task of influencing public opinion on this subject, 
were a body of persons in the city of Providence, chiefly 
mechanics, who began with very honest purposes, about 
the year 18:53, to hold meetings to discuss the subject of 
suffrage. This party after various successes died out in 
1S37. In the year 1840, persons of the same class began 
to agitate the subject again, and Thomas W. Dorr, a law- 
yer in Providence, who had been little successful in his 
profession, and had not been advanced in politics as he 
was known to have desired to be, joined this body, with 
some other politicians who were in quest of oihce and 
distinction. This collection of persons soon after took 
upon Itself a regular organization, under the name of the 
Rhode Island Suffrage Association, and fell under the 
management and control of Mr. Dorr and the otlier lead- 
ers, who, as every body in Rhode Island very well knows, 
had joined it for purposes of their own ambition. The 
declared object of the association was "a liberal extension 
of suffrage to the native white male citizens of the United 
States, resident in Rhode Island." Some other leaders of 
the democratic party joined the association in the spring 
of 1841. ^ "^ 

In June 1841, the General Assembly of Rhode Island, 
attentive to the course of public opinion, resolved to call 
a convention for the purpose of amending the charter or 
forming a constitution, and directed the delegates to that 
body to be chosen on the 31st day of August. On the 
5th of July the Suffrage Party held a mass meeting at 



Providence, and instructed their State Committee to call 
a convention for the purpose of forming a constitution, 
and this committee directed the delegates to their con- 
vention to be chosen on the 28th of August — three days 
before the choice of the delegates to the legal convention. 
The design of the leaders who had foisted themselves 
upon the Suffrage Party now became apparent. They 
wished to step in between the legal Convention called by 
authority of the Legislature, and the people, in order to 
give the course of things such a turn as would favor their 
purposes of party and personal ambition. The legal 
Convention was ordered to meet on Monday, November 
2d, 1841 ; and having met and considered the subject of 
Suffrage, they adjourned in order to ascertain the wishes 
of the people until February 14th, 1842. The " People's 
Convention," led by Mr. Dorr and his friends, assembled 
November 16th, 1841, completed their constitution, and 
gave it out to the people to be voted for on the 27th 
December 1841, and the five succeeding days. On the 
12th of January 1842, the " People's Convention" again 
assembled, counted and reported upon the votes given for 
their constitution, and declared that it had been adopted 
and should be established "by all necessary means." 
Dorr and his associates had previously given out that they 
would accept no constitution framed by the Convention 
called by the Legislature, however liberal it might be ; 
and their indecent haste satisfied every body that they in- 
tended to prevent the people from adopting any constitu- 
tion but their own. All the while, let it be remembered, 
a legal convention was in existence, preparing a constitu- 
tion ; and that the result of their labors would have been 
satisfactory to the people, if the people had not been 
misled, will be apparent to any one who will examine the 
provisions of the constitution proposed by them. More- 
over the "People's Convention" was not only wholly un- 
authorized by laAV, but it represented actually a minority 
only of the people, if by the people is meant the whole 
number of white male citizens of the United States, over 
21 years of age, residing in the State. This number ex- 
ceeded 22,000 ; while only about 7,200 votes Avere cast, 
when the delegates to the "People's Convention" were 
chosen. 

On the 21st, 22d and 23d days of March, 1842, pursu- 
ant to the directions of the Legislature, the legal Constitu- 
tion was submitted to the people for their adoption. The 



whole Suffrage Party, who had determined under the ad- 
vice of their leaders, that this Constitution should not be 
adopted, and a part of the ''freeholders" voted against it, 
and it was defeated. 

The difference between these two constitutions, on the 
subject of suffrage, was very slight. By the " People's 
Constitution," "every white male citizen of the United 
States of the age of 21 years, who has resided in this 
State for one year and in the town where he votes for six 
months," was permitted to vote. By the legal constitu- 
tion, every such person who had resided in the State Hvo 
years, was allowed to vote. In the case of naturalized 
citizens, the freehold qualification was retained. 

On the 18th of May, 1842, Thomas W. Dorr, claiming 
to have been lawfully elected Governor of Rhode Island, 
under the so-called " People's Constitution," at the head 
of an armed force, attempted to capture the State Arsenal 
in Providence, under circumstances of great terror and 
danger to the Avhole population ; but was repulsed by the 
government and fled from the State. He rested his pre- 
tensions as to the constitution upon two grounds, both of 
which will be considered hereafter. 

1. That the Constitution framed by the People's Con- 
vention was the law of the landj because a constitution 
does not require to be framed and voted for under any 
sanction of the existing government. 

2. That it was the law of the land, because it had 
actually been voted for atid adopted by a majority of the 
citizens of the United States, of the age of 21 year's, resi- 
dent in the State. 

Both of these propositions were unfounded. 

In the last week of June, 1842, Mr. Dorr, having col- 
lected a force of desperate persons from various points of 
the neighboring States, made another effort to overthrow 
the government of Rhode Island and to establish his own 
title to administer its affairs. Governor King marched a 
strong force of the citizen-soldiery of the State against 
Mr. Dorr at Chepatchet, and he again fled. 

In April, 1844, Mr. Dorr voluntarily returned to Rhode 
Island, was indicted and tried for treason against the 
State, was convicted and sentenced to the State Prison 
for life. 

In the third week of June, 1842, before Mr. Dorr es- 
tablished his camp at Chepatchet to reneio the icar upon 
the State, the Legislature had passed an act providing for 



8 

another convention to form a constitution, to be held in 
September, and to be composed of delegates chosen by 
persons having three years residence in the State, neither 
property, taxation, nor military service being required as 
a qualification. The constitution framed by this conven- 
tion is now the law of Rhode Island, having been adopted 
by the people in November, 1842. 

Let me now request your attention to the two proposi- 
tions on which Mr. Dorr rested for his justification. 

1. The doctrine asserted by him and now endorsed 
by the leaders of the democratic party who condemn his 
imprisonment and profess to seek his liberation, is, that a 
majority of the people have the right at any time, and in 
their own mode and without any action of the Legisla- 
ture, to assemble and alter the constitution, or form and 
adopt a new one, as they please ; and that when they 
have so done, the minority are bound by the change. In 
other words — ^for it comes directly to this — a majority of 
the people of this State may at any time inform you or 
me, that any article in the Bill of Rights is abolished ; 
that the Supreme Judicial Court is done away with ; that 
there is no trial by Jury ; or that any thing else has been 
abolished, which they may choose no longer to have ; and 
that we must submit to the change. This extraordinary 
doctrine is, curiously enough, called American Liberty. 
It is the most monstrous departure from the true principles 
of our institutions, that has ever been heard of since they 
came into being. It is utterly unfounded in history, rea- 
son, the rights of mankind, or in any decent theory of 
human freedom. It will destroy our liberties, if it pre- 
vails. It will render null and void all the precautions 
taken by our ancestors to establish those liberties upon 
the firm foundations of principle and justice. 

The American doctrine of civil liberty is, that the ma- 
jority of the people have the ultimate right to ordain all 
political relations. Possessing the sovereign power of 
society, the majority may alter, modify, or wholly change 
the form of government ; and when they have so done, if 
the minority are properly represented in the act, the mi- 
nority are bound by it. This doctrine, it is not now 
necessary to trace to its historical sources ; all our institu- 
tions and the whole frame-work of society, throughout this 
country, are founded and depend upon it. 

It is also a part of our American doctrine, that a 
change of government in the way of Revolution, and a 



change by the way of what we call, with great propriety, 
an Amendment, are separate and distinct processes. In 
some parts of the world, the right and the act of Revolu- 
tion are understood to include, in a general sense, all fun- 
damental changes, however accomplished. 

But in our system, there is another distinct and peculiar 
act, depending in part upon the same ultimate right as 
Revolution, but operating by a diiferent process, and re- 
quiring and admitting no previous dissolution or disruption 
of the relations between the governed and the government. 
This act is the amendment of the old government, or the 
substitution of one fundamental law for another. It dil!ers 
from Revolution in this respect. Revolution is the entire 
overthrow of the old government : all ties and relations 
between it and the people are suddenly and violently 
broken. Society rises up in its might and declares that 
the old government is no longer the organ of its will or 
the representative of its power, — that it has ceased to be a 
government, — that it is repudiated. Society has therefore 
no farther occasion or use for the old government, but is 
only concerned to put it out of existence as quickly as possi- 
ble, and then to establish for itself a new government. In 
all such cases there is and must be, for a longer or shorter 
period, an interval of no government at all ; but this inter- 
val is generally short. It often hapi^ens, as it did in these 
colonies, after the authority of the crown was thrown off, 
that the local authorities continue to exercise the powers 
of government, with the assent and support of the people, 
and they thus become a neiv government. 

But amendment is a process by which a new funda- 
mental laio is substituted for the old. Before society can 
grant its assent to the proposed substitution, it must ascer- 
tain that the change is required and intended by the requi- 
site portion of its members; this it can ascertain only 
through the existing government, which is its sole agent, 
the sole representative of the laAv ; and it is therefore clear 
that in proceeding to amend its fundamental law, society 
does not and cannot intend beforehand to put an imme- 
diate end to its relations with its existing government. 

There is one other doctrine of our American liberty that 
is not to be overlooked in this connection. While it is 
admitted that the majority of the people have the sovereign 
right to ordain all political relations, it is equally true that 
the form of the government and the great fundamental 
laws ought to be and must be acceptable to the largest 



10 

possible portion of the people. It is not sufficient to have 
a Constitution depend on the mere force and will of a ma- 
jority : it must unite the sentiments of more than a half 
and one person over ; it must pursue the greatest happi- 
ness of the greatest number, in order to be democratic in 
its scope and purposes. Again, the rights of minorities^ 
the liberties of the individual must be recognised, estab- 
lished and made inalienable in the fundamental laws them- 
selves ; otherwise, in the course of ordinary legislation, 
which is only the expression of the mere will of a tem- 
porary majority, those rights and liberties will be violated 
every day. To avoid this violation is the very object 
of written Constitutions ; and it may be affirmed, that if 
our governments were merely bound to consult and ex- 
press in their laws the naked will of a majority, there 
would be no necessity and no sense in having any written 
Constitution whatever. 

Now it is manifest, that from the very nature of the pro- 
cess of amendment, and from the very requirements of the 
democratic element in government (which I should rather 
call the principle of liberty, however,) it is absolutely in- 
dispensable that the existing government should superin- 
tend every amendment of the fundamental law ; that un- 
less the existing government takes the first step in the 
process, and then finally ascertains the fact of amendment, 
the amendment will involve a violation of the principles 
of liberty, and of the doctrmes of American public law. It 
is of no consequence whether the Constitution or form of 
Government of any State in this Union contains a provis- 
ion or form for its own amendment, or not : the existing 
government must in either case act in the amendment, or it 
cannot be lawfully established. To reduce this proposi- 
tion to a practical form, I assert, that in the case of Rhode 
Island, although the Charter and the fundamental laws con- 
tained no provision for amending or establishing a govern- 
ment, the doctrine set up by Dorr and now maintained by 
persons in the democratic party, that a majority of the peo- 
ple of Rhode Island, independently of the government of 
the State, on their own authority, had a right to amend, or 
alter or establish a constitution, is contrary to our Ameri- 
can system, subversive of the principles of liberty, and in 
all respects false and dangerous. 

For the purpose of making it certain that Dorr went for 
Amendment, and not Revolution, I have examined his 
Message to his Legislature ; in Avhich he says, " they [the 



11 

Suffrage Party] maintain the ground that they are not only 
a majority, but that they have proceeded rightfully to alter 
and reform their government, according to well-defined 
principles in our republican system." 

The government of Rhode Island existing under the 
charter, it will be admitted, was the lawful government of 
the State, at all times, until another government had been 
substituted in its place. Government does not cease its 
functions or relations to society, as one or another genera- 
tion passes off the stage of life, for society itself is a con- 
tinuous whole through successive ages. The individuals 
composing it depart from it and come into it, one by one, 
and of all ages and all conditions. An old man dies ; but 
government is not to cease because one old man has ceased 
to exist ; the infant that is born at the same time into the 
world requires its protection as much as the aged did who 
has just left it. It is therefore a sleepless vigilance, a 
never-ending agency, an uninterrupted and unbroken be- 
ing. It is, moreover, the organ and the sole organ of so- 
ciety ; it is the agent and the executive of the law : with- 
out it, society cannot act as a body politic and organized, 
but only as an unorganized collection of men in a primary 
capacity. Dorr did not undertake to have the people of 
Rhode Island act in this unorganized capacity. He did 
not pretend that the charter government wa^ at mi end, 
before his constitution had been voted for. 

The government of Rhode Island, under the charter, 
was the lawful government of the State of Rhode Island ; 
it was the representative of the political society dwelling 
in that State, and the sole agent by which the law of the 
State could act. When, therefore, it was proposed in 
Rhode Island to form a constitution for the State, the ex- 
isting government alone could perform the necessary legal 
acts, whatever those acts were. 

There are also certain other functions, which, though 
not coming under the head of legislative or legal acta, 
could be performed by the existing government alone. 
I will now state what the necessary steps are. 

1. The existing government must pmcticailly decide 
when an amendment of the constitution is demanded, be- 
cause they must call the convention, or other body, that is 
to prepare and submit the constitution to the people for 
their adoption. This necessity is derived /rowt the rights 
of the minority. The existing government alone can 
clothe the convention, or other body, that is to frame the 



12 

constitution, with the necessary representative character. 
Thus the Legislature of Rhode Island, although them- 
selves chosen under the existing constitution, by^^the free- 
holders only, were the representatives and legal agents of 
the whole people : they were the sole agents of that whole 
people, represeiiting the minority as well as the majority, 
while any other agents, even if selected by a majority of 
the people, could not be known to the law, and could only 
represent a majority. A convention summoned by the 
Legislature would represent the minority in the State as 
well as the majority. No other convention would. 

In order to see that this is not a mere theoretical 
position, it is only necessary to look at the practical opera- 
tion of forming a constitution. If a majority of the peoj^le 
call a popular convention to prepare a constitution, it is 
manifest that such a convention will contain no sufficient 
number of persons, if any at all, who represent the wishes 
and interests of the minority, or feel particularly charged 
with them. In a juncture where the proposed change is 
one that divides society, though unequally, into two dis- 
tinct parties, with strong and ardent opinions on both sides, 
it is not too much to say that a convention called by the 
majority only will never contain a single representative of 
the hiterests of the minority. Such a convention meets 
for the purpose of preparing a constitution in accordance 
with the wishes of a majority of the people ; and the very 
first thing it does, is to violate or overlook some important 
right of the minority, some safeguard of individual liberty, 
which is found inconsistent with the demands of the ma- 
jority. The constitution, thus prepared, goes before the 
people for ratification, and the same majority that had pre- 
pared it, through their exclusive representatives, vote for 
its adoption, and the rights of the minority are sacrificed 
without ever having been heard ; for the constitution must 
be voted for as it has been prepared. Mr. Morton and Mr. 
Bancroft, or any body else, may call this jDroceeding of a 
majority the exercise of the democratic principle ; but in 
point of fact, it is tyranny — gross tyranny ; and if the peo- 
ple of this country ever suffer it to become the doctrine 
and rule of their public conduct, they Avill destroy the very 
principle that makes our liberty both theoretically and 
practically the best in the world, because it aff'ords the 
greatest amount of security to the greatest number of the 
people. It will not do, therefore, to leave the minority 
unrepresented at any step in the process of forming and 



13 

establishing a constitution ; if their rights are overlooked 
in the first, or in any stage of the business, they never can 
be restored at any subsequent stage. It will not do to say 
that because the majority are ultimately to establish the 
constitution by their votes, it is therefore just or con- 
sistent with any sound theory or any safe practice, to have 
the constitution prepared and submitted by those only who 
are in the interests of the majority. The minority must 
have in such a body those who will look after and insist 
upon their rights, otherwise their rights will certainly be 
trampled upon. When the existing Legislature summons 
the body that is to form the constitution, the minority will 
be adequately represented in that body, for several reasons. 
First. The Legislature will prescribe the qualifications 
of the Delegates and the mode of their election : and in 
this a sense of public duty and decency will lead the 
Legislature to attend to the rights and interests of all 
classes of the citizens. 

/Secondhj. The Delegates will know, that in contem- 
plation of law, they really represent the whole people ; and 
where this is the theory, the practice will be more likely 
to exhibit the same principle, than it will where every 
Delegate knows that he is sent only as the representative 
of a party. 

Let us now take an illustration of this doctrine from our 
Massachusetts Bill of Rights. Suppose that a majority of 
the people wish, in framing a new constitution, to avoid 
the provision by which it is declared that private property 
shall not be taken for public uses, without being paid for. 
It is easy to imagine a state of society where such a wish 
might prevail ; but probably no one would be so foolish as 
to deny the monstrous injustice, tyranny and danger 
of such an omission in a free constitution. Still, it might 
be a right of a minority, of the agricultural interest chiefly, 
and the majority might resolve to be rid of it. A conven- 
tion of the people, without authority of the Legislature, is 
called, and in it there will certainly be no adequate repre- 
sentation of the minority. The constitution is framed 
without any provision on this subject, in obedience to the 
known wishes of the majority, and by that majority is 
adopted. Private property is thenceforth at the mercy of 
every future Legislature, whom any rail-road, canal or 
turnpike corporation can persuade into a grant of extraor- 
dinary powers for apparently public purposes. But let the 
existing government summon the convention, and the 



14 



constitution it will frame will be no such creature of party, 
for the very reason that all classes will be so generally 
represented in it, that they can attend to and enforce their 
rights. 

But I do not intend to rest this part of the argument 
upon the practical operation of constitution-making merely. 
The people of Massachusetts have a strong regard for the 
law ; and therefore I recur to the proposition that the 
existing Legislature, being the sole agents of the law, can 
alone clothe the delegates of the people with the true rep- 
resentive character necessary to the act of forming and 
proposing a Constitution to the people. This is not 
equivalent to saying that the Legislature shall decide what 
the Constitution shall be. It is only saying that the sanc- 
tion of the law, or in other terms, the sanction of the 
whole society itself, is necessary to the act of laying a 
constitution before the people for their adoption. A man 
may not come forth from his study of a morning and say 
to the people, here is a constitution which I have prejiar- 
ed, meet in your several towns on such a day and vote 
for it, because it may be a very unfit constitution to be 
proposed, and its chance of being adopted is no proper 
measure of its fitness. But when the law sanctions the 
proposal of a particular constitution, the whole society, 
through its constitutional authorities, has decided that it 
will entertain and consider the proposal, and if a majority 
adopt it, it shall thereby become the fundamental law of 
the land. Without such previous sanction, I do not know 
how a constitution can become the fundamental law of 
any State, though voted for by a majority ; for the minor- 
ity have never said that they will receive it as law, after 
a majority shall have voted for it. It is impossible to 
imply their assent, where they have never been even the- 
oretically represented. It matters not how vast a majority 
may be — if it contains ninety-nine hundredths of the peo- 
ple — the rights of the individual cannot be taken from him, 
unless his assent can in some way be shewn, and it never 
can be shewn, where he has had no opportunity of being 
heard. This is a doctrine a little antecedent in its origin to 
American Liberty itself — for its origin is Justice, whose 
foundations were laid before the world began. We may 
humbly hope, however, that American Liberty still rests in 
some degree upon those foundations. 

2. The existing government must also ascertain and 
certify to the people the fact that a constitution has been 



15 

duly adopted. They must both ascertain its adoption, 
and certify its adoption. No other power or authority 
exists, through Avhich the Avhole people can know the 
adoption of a constitution. A private man, invested with 
no legal authority, enters your house and says, " on such 
a day, a majority of the people met and adopted a consti- 
tution, and as one of the officers under that constitution, 
I require you to acknowledge and submit yourself to it." 
You demand the evidence of the adoption : in other 
words, you require to know how it became the supreme 
law of the land. He replies " I counted the votes of the 
majority by whom it was adopted." Surprised to find that 
your rights and liberties have thus been swept away, you 
demand to know who made this individual a witness of 
the fact that he asserts ? Who made the evidence which 
he says he has collected lawful evidence of the fact of 
voting ? Who gave him authority to receive and count the 
votes ? Did he take any oath faithfully to discharge his 
duties, and if he did, who was authorized to administer 
such oath ? Who prescribed the qualifications of the vot- 
ers ? Who knows that those qualifications were adhered 
to ? Have the votes been certified to any central author- 
ity, any common organ of the whole people ? Has that 
authority recognized them ? Who made such certification 
binding proof to that authority ? All these requisites you 
have been accustomed to look to, as the evidence of the 
passage of a law, and you know that there is but one 
source from which these requisites can be derived. Yet 
the officer of this new " People's Constitution," which has 
come upon yon. like a thief in the night, can answer none 
of your inquiries. He can only say that a majority of the 
people assembled together and voted a constitution, and 
that he was there and saw the people vote, and therefore 
it is now the law of the land to be maintained " by all 
necessary means." There is nothing left for you to do, 
but to turn him out of doors, knowing that the day of 
such a monstrous absurdity has not yet come. 

Again, it is only when the law prescribes the qualifica- 
tion of voters on a constitution, and the duties of the offi- 
cers Avho are to receive and certify the votes, that frauds 
can be prevented. Frauds in the votes and frauds in the 
officers who receive the votes can be punished only by the 
law ; and if there is no punishment provided against such 
fraud, it is more certain to be committed than any other 
act to be looked for from the passions and interests of 



16 

mankind. The proof of this, furnished in the very case 
of the Dorr Constitution, ought to open our eyes. No 
authority existed in the managers of those elections — no 
punishment of fraud was prescribed, and none could be 
prescribed, because those managers never applied to the 
authority that could alone enact any such punishments. 
The consequence was, that frauds of the most frightful 
character were perpetrated to such an extent, that the man- 
agers of the scheme overshot their mark, and the frauds 
themselves became proof that a real majority of the people 
had never in fact voted. 

But it is not necessary to pursue the argument farther. 
I will only remind you, fellow citizens, that the whole 
course of American history establishes the doctrine that a 
constitution can only be made binding on the whole peo- 
ple, Avhen the existing public organs have superintended 
its adoption. When the Revolution had taken place, the 
power of the crown was thrown off in these colonies, but 
the legislative authorities generally continued to perform 
the functions of government. Instead of receiving their 
Governors by appointment of the King, the people of the 
several colonies chose their own Governors, and the gov- 
ernment of each colony went on, as before, under their 
charters. In some States, they prepared to form constitu- 
tions, but not immediately. New Hampshire applied to 
the continental Congress for advice how to act, in Octo- 
ber, 1775. In November the Congress recommended to 
the legislative body in New Hampshire " to call a full and 
free representation of the people, and that the representa- 
tives, if they tlnnk it necessary, establish such a form of 
government, as in their judgment will best produce the 
happiness of the people," &c. In South Carolina, the 
same course was pursued. Congress advised the existing 
authorities of the colony to call a full and free representa- 
tion of the people, to establish a government. In Massa- 
chusetts, our fathers formed no constitution until four 
years after the Revolution. We went on as Rhode Island 
did, under the charter. In 1780, a convention was called 
by the existing authorities of the State and framed a con- 
stitution. This constitution contained no provision for its 
own amendment. In 1820, the existing Legislature, sat- 
isfied by petition that the people wished to form a new 
constitution, by a law passed for the purpose, called a Con- 
vention which framed the present constitution, and it was 
adopted by the people in the form and mode prescribed. 



17 

The Constitution of the United States was adopted in 
the same way. The people of the United States were 
living under a government called the Confederation. 
They determined to form a new government. The Con- 
gress sitting at Philadelphia, tinder the Confederation, on 
the 21st of February 1787, adopted a resolution, recom- 
mending to the people of the United States to send dele- 
gates to meet in convention at Philadelphia, on the sec- 
ond Monday of the next May, " for the purpose of revising 
the articles of confederation and reporting alterations and 
amendments therein." In May, the delegates assembled, 
framed the Constitution of the United States, and reported 
it to tJie Congress on the 17th of September, recom- 
mending that it be submitted to a convention of delegates 
to be chosen in each State by the people thereof, under a 
recommendation of its Legislature, for their assent and 
ratification. On the 28th of September the Congress 
passed a resolution, by which they transmitted a copy of 
the Constitution to the several State Legislatures, "to be 
submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each 
State by the people thereof." The Legislatures called 
these conventions, and Avhen these bodies in eleven States 
had ratified and adopted the instrument, the Congress ap- 
pointed, in pursuance of the instrument itself, the first 
Wednesday in January 1789, for the choice of electors of 
the first President, the first Wednesday of February for 
the choice of President by the electors, and the first 
Wednesday of March as the day for commencing proceed- 
ings under the new Constitution. On this last day, the 
old government was dissolved. 

The great and good men engaged in that immortal 
work, knew the principles of liberty and the force of pre- 
cedent. Every step of their proceedings is marked by a 
distinct representation of tJie ivhole people. They knew 
that in reason and the nature of the thing, a free constitu- 
tion can be made binding on a minority, only when the 
minority is represented in the act of forming and adopting 
it. They knew that democracy is, in this particular, iden- 
tical with justice ; and they so conducted every part of 
their proceedings, as to stamp this great precedent with 
indelible traces of the principle on which they founded it. 
Is that principle so soon forgotten ? 

II. The second proposition, upon Avhich Mr. Dorr rest- 
ed his pretensions, is a question of fact. He asserted that 
the '* People's Constitution" had been voted for by a ma- 



18 

jority of the American citizens of the age of twenty-one 
years, having a permanent residence or home in the State. 
1 believe that this assertion was untrue, and that, when 
Dorr took up arms, he knew it to be so. The facts that 
have convinced me of this, are the following : 

1. When Mr. Dorr and the other leaders of the Suffrage 
Association determined to anticipate the legal convention 
in presenting a constitution to the people, they devised a 
system of voting for the ratification of their constitution, 
which bears upon its face proof that they intended a fraud. 
They provided that their constitution should be voted for, 
in the little State of Rhode Island, where the whole num- 
ber of voters, upon their own principles, was only 23,142, 
through a period of six days. For the first three days, 
the voters were to present themselves in person, and to 
register their names as voting for or against the constitu- 
tion. During the next three days, any person, who had 
voted during the first three days, was at liberty to bring in 
any vote or any number of votes, with the name of some 
person claiming to be a voter written on the face, and with 
his own name written on the back. • These votes were 
called '■'■proxies.''' No oath or engagement of any kind 
was exacted of the moderators, or clerks, or other officers 
who received these votes, and no mode was prescribed of 
verifying the returns which they should make. 

I submit to you, fellow citizens, that no set of men ever 
devised a system like this, in which the broadest provision 
is made for the commission of fraud, without contemplat- 
ing that frauds would be committed by themselves or by 
somebody. The whole history of baUoting throughout 
the world exhibits nothing like it. There was not a single 
check, a single safeguard, a single element of certainty or 
security in the whole scheme. When you consider that 
this scheme of balloting was devised for the adoption of 
a constitution — that great sovereign act of the people, re- 
quiring, in order to give it any moral or legal force, to be 
ascertained with the highest degree of certainty — you will 
be satisfied that it must have been devised for the very 
purpose of imposition. I say this deliberately ; for it is a 
universal course of reasoning, acted upon by all mankind, 
that the design and purpose of a machine, or a system, may 
fairly be inferred from its adaptedness to produce a par- 
ticular end. This system of voting was exquisitely adapt- 
ed to all purposes of fraud. Any moderator or clerk of the 
meeting not only could have smuggled in false votes^ but 



19 

he was under no engagement or sanction, of any kind, not 
to do so. Any one of the 3,552 persons who were said 
to have voted for the Dorr Constitution in the city of 
Providence, could have carried in the whole 610 proxy 
votes which were cast there, and he might have forged 
one half or the whole of the names upon them, and no 
one was under any obligation to reject or exclude them. 
l.et It be remembered, that this system was devised to be 
put m operation m a time of great excitement, and to be 
acted under by heated partizans, in a most furious contest. 
Ihere is no occasion to wonder that the people of 
Khode Island, who did not belong to the Suffrage Party 
were exasperated by this premeditated villainy. There 
are few people whose passions will remain cool, when they 
see an attempt to erect a power over their rights and lib- 
erties through a deliberate system of fraud. The people 
ot Khode Island have no doubt been excited, at different 
periods m tlie history of this affair. Let us beware how 
we do injustice to those who have been thus outraged 

2. I now ask your attention, fellow citizens,'' to the 
lact that Mr. Dorr's principles on the subject of voting and 
elections are no principles at all. He does not believe m 
the possible purity of elections. He holds that no elec- 
tions are elfer free from more or less doubtful votes, but 
that the result is always affected, more or less, by votes 
which ought not to have been received. In proof of this 
1 quote a passage from his Message of May 3, 1842, to his 
pretended Legislature, in which he glosses over the facts 
with regard to the voting for his constitution, deeming it 
as he says -due to ourselves and to our fellow citizens 
abroad, who entertain so lively an interest in our affairs, 
to pass briefly in review the history of our proceedincrs " 
His ^' brief review^^ is therefore addressed not so much to 
those who are well acquainted with the facts, as to those 
who are at a distance from the spot. But any one who 
will attend to the facts, will perceive that it is just a 
plausible, but extremely deficient statement of the matter 
It is, however, ample in one respect, that it exhibits his 
principles. The italics in this extract have been adopted 
by me, to distinguish its best passages. 

rfpn.^'L?'^" ,"'"''"' ''"'' w^rde.is and ward clerks in the city of Provi- 

the"'„ ;etinrorthTr-'-^""'"i'."^'^ ''''' '^ '''' ""'3' difference befween 
ine meetings of the freemen and those of the people. This difFerenre will 
create no senous objection, when it is stated t!mt^the name of every n^an 
Who voted for the people's constitution was written on his ticket; and 



20 

that the ticket of every man who did not attend the polls on the three Inst 
of the six days of voting, in addition to his signature, was attested by 
that of some person who voted at the polls on the three first days. These 
proxy votes were hut a sviall portion of the icIioJe. Still further: the name 
of every man who voted was registered ; and a copy of the register in 
every lown and ward was duly certified with ihe votes. All the votes 
have been preserved in their envelopes for any subsequent reference. 
The votes were duly returned to the people's convention, and were ex- 
amined and counted by a large committee. The committee reported that, 
as nearly as could be ascertained, the number of males in this State over 
the age of twenty-one j'ears, citizens of the United States, and perma- 
nently resident, deducting persons under guardianship, insane, and con- 
vict, was 23,142, of whom a majority is 11,572; and that the people's 
constitution received 13,944 votes — being a majority of 4,747. j]fter mak- 
ing every reasonable uiloicance for questionable votes, from v>hich no elec- 
tion can be entirely free, it is impossible to entertain a reasonable dovbt that 
a large majority of ihe whole people fairly voted for this constitution." 

I pass over the statements of fact in this " brief review," 
which I shall revert to hereafter, for the purpose of sub- 
mitting to your own experience, fellow citizens, that the 
opinion that "no election can be entirely free from ques- 
tionable votes" is as false a doctrine, as it is dangerous. 
You know that elections can be and are entirely free from 
questionable votes. You know that your election of a 
Governor, for instance, is never ultimately affected by a 
single vote that is not duly certified to have been duly 
cast by a qualified voter; and that nothing ^is wanting 
anywhere to the complete purity of elections, but that an 
honest system of checks should be enacted with an honest 
purpose, and should be honestly administered. But a man 
who does not believe that this can be done, who holds 
that no election is pure, who thinks that there always will 
be questionable votes, is the very man to dispense with 
all checks, and to require no engagement of any kind of 
the presiding officers at an election. Why should he not ? 
Such checks and engagements, according to his principles, 
never keep out questionable votes, and therefore he dis- 
penses with them, that the great result may be swelled to 
as large a sum total as possible, leaving it to after guesses 
to make every " reasonable allowance for questionable 
votes." One merit Mr. Dorr's Message exhibits fully, that 
his practice corresponded to his principles. But to you, 
men of Massachusetts, I submit, that a man who will act 
upon such doctrines in the matter of adopting a constitu- 
tion, is fitter for the place where Mr. Dorr now is, than 
for that which he aspired to reach. To you I submit, that 
the principles avowed in this message reflect light upon 
what I have said was the original design, when this scheme 
of voting was devised. 



21 

3. The third great fact which illustrates the original 
design, is the suppression of the lists of voters. Mr. Dorr, 
in his message says, " the name of every man who voted 
was registered, and a copy of the register in every town 
and ward was duly certified with the votes. All the votes 
have been preserved in their envelopes for any subsequent 
reference. The votes were duly returned to the people's 
convention, and were examined and counted by a large 
committee." This message bears date May 3, 1842 ; and 
in it Mr. Dorr ivholly omitted to state that these lists and 
votes had previously been stippresssd by order of the Suf- 
frage Association. The People's Convention counted the 
votes in January, 1842, and authorised their Secretaries to 
copy any part of the registry of the votes, or the votes 
themselves, on the application of any person. Lists of the 
votes said to have been cast in the town of Newport were 
applied for and obtained, and the frauds discovered there 
will presently be stated. Foreseeing the inevitable result 
of any farther examination, the Suffrage Association coun- 
termanded the orders of the People''s Conve7ition, and pro- 
hibited any more copies from being taken. This was 
done three months before Dorr delivered his message. No 
lists were given after the 28th of January. 

4. There is another fact, of equal significance. The 
great body of the " People's Convention" were undoubt- 
edly well-meaning persons, and it is apparent that their 
leaders thought it would not do to let them know the 
whole story. Mr. Dorr was one of the committee of that 
body appointed to count and report the votes, on the adop- 
tion of the Constitution. A copy of their report, dated 
Jan. 13, 1842, signed by Mr. Dorr and others of the 
committee, is before me, printed in the Documents of Con- 
gress, page 437. [Doc. of House of Repr. No. 546, 28th 
Congress, 1st session.] It says not one word about proxy 
votes. It does not distinguish by words, or by figures, 
between the votes cast by proxy, and those cast in person 
by the voter. It gives a " total" of 13,944 votes for the 
constitution, without an intimation as to the mode of 
voting. The committee assert, that " ev€7-y voter has 
signed his name upon his ticket.''^ We have seen that 
Mr. Dorr knew that proxies were cast, when he delivered 
his Message. He must have got them from the returns 
made to the convention, and the votes themselves proved 
how they were cast, because the proxies were " attested" by 
some person who had previously voted. Yet the body of 
that convention were allowed to separate, in official and per- 



22 



sonal ignorance that 3,762 votes had been cast by proxies 
and were inchided in the count, after they had resolved to 
estabhsh their constitution "by all necessary means." 

Among the documents above referred to as printed by 
Congress, is a table of the votes on the adoption of the 
"People's Constitution," "as counted by the committee." 
It is No. 73 of these documents, while the Report of the 
counting committee, signed by Dorr and others, is No. 89. 
This table is not referred to by the committee, or in any 
way made part of their report. But in the body of their 
report, they give the votes of each city and town, without 
distinguishing between proxy votes and others. If this 
table was prepared by the committee — and there seems to 
be no reason to doubt it — the inference is unavoidable that 
they knew what proxies had been cast, but did not choose 
to tell the convention. The table will be found below. 

Vote on the question of the adoption of the People's Constitution, Dccemher, 
1841, as counted by the Committee. 



Towns. 



Barrington 

Burrill ville 

Charlestown 

Bristol 

Coventry 

Cranston 

Cumberland 

Exeter 

East Greenwich 

Foster 

Glocester 

Hopkinton 

Jamestown 

Johnston 

Little Compton 

Middletown 

New Shoreham 

Nortli Kingstown 

Nortli Providence 

Newport 

Portsmouth 

Providence 

Richmond 

Scituate 

Smithfield 

South Kingstown 

Tiverton 

Warren 

Warwick 

West Greenwich 

Westerly 



For the Constitution. 


Against the Constitu- 








tion. 


Total. 


Freemen. 


Non free- 


Freemen. 


Non-free 




men. 




men. 




28 


24 






52 


134 


149 






283 


49 


51 






100 


149 


211 






360 


155 


250 






405 


167 


234 






401 


295 


597 






892 


52 


82 






134 


50 


85 


6 




141 


124 


113 






237 


193 


208 






401 


83 


79 


11 


2 


175 


18 


13 






31 


142 


200 






348 


19 


25 


17 


4 


65 


8 


22 






30 


102 


30 






132 


81 


170 






251 


224 


479 






703 


318 


885 






1,203 


67 


59 






126 


1,057 


2,495 






3,552 


45 


88 






103 


208 


316 






524 


381 


945 


1 




1,327 


140 


146 






286 


101 


173 


3 




277 


103 


106 




1 


210 


308 


592 






900 


17 


45 






62 


107 


144 


1 




252 


4,925 


9,026 


39,1 


7 


13,955 



Proxy 
votes. 



21 

79 

12 

96 

162 

113 

190 

67 

37 

55 

157 

68 

6 

104 

14 

13 

102 
198 
2b2 

59 
610 

47 
227 
449 

91 
131 

43 
256 

17 

76 

3,762 



23 

4. I now come to the fourth topic which should be the 
subject of your examination — the actual frauds commit- 
ted. First, we will take the proxy votes. I have already 
explained the manner in which these proxies were cast. 
From Mr. Dorr's message, it appears that the whole num- 
ber of persons in the State who were claimed by him as 
entitled to vote was 23,142, of whom a majority is 11,572, 
and that the votes cast for the Constitution were 13,944. 
Of these 3,762 were proxy votes! If we deduct these 
from the whole number of votes there remain only 10,182 
votes cast in the only way that admitted of any security 
and in the only way in which a Constitution can be hon- 
estly voted for ; leaving the actual vote 1,390 less than a 
majority. Clearly therefore Mr. Dorr's pretensions that 
his Constitution was actually adopted rested upon the 
3,762 proxy votes. 

Observe, now, fellow citizens, that this man took up 
arms and levied a civil war, and jeoparded the lives not 
only of the soldiers Avho were called out against him, but 
the lives of innocent women and children, and did all he 
could to pour upon his native State the combined horrors 
of civil war, upon the strength of these proxy votes. He 
was a member of the committee in the People's Conven- 
tion, Y\dio counted the votes,* and he knew that the pre- 
tended majority was made up by these proxies, but said 
nothing about them at the time. He has since admitted 
that more or less of these votes were questionable, but he 
has never told the world hoio many of them he Jcneiv to be 
false and hoio many he claimed to be the genimie expres- 
sion of the wishes of real voters. He has been tried and 
condemned for treason and has gone into the prison where 
he is to expiate his crime. He has died and made no sign. 
He has passed from civil life and never uttered a word in 
explanation of tvhat he knew about these p7'oxies. In one 
sense, they are the whole strength of his case, the hinge on 
which his moral justification turns. It matters compara- 
tively little upon the question of his moral guilt, how many 
of these votes the people of Rhode Island can now discover 
to be fraudulent, though the number is large. To them 
and to us, there is a more important question, what did 
Dorr himself know to be the case, when he took up arms. 
He admits that he knew some of them to be "questiona- 
ble ;" how many he does ?iot say. I have tried to judge 

* See his Address to the people of Rhode Island in August, 1S43. 



24 



him fairly, but to me his silence on this point is the sul- 
len, dogged, guilty prudence, that often reveals more than 
all other evidence. 

As an illustration of the moral quality of this man's con- 
duct, let me suppose that an election for Governor had 
taken place in this Commonwealth, that the Legislature 
had met to count the votes, and that they had found the 
election must depend upon the validity of the returns from 
a single town. Let me suppose that the Legislature had 
found it to be their conscientious duty to reject the votes 
of that town, and that the disappointed candidate, upon 
the strength of his own assertion that these votes were 
duly cast and returned, had taken up arms and levied war, 
to possess himself of the government, and had planted can- 
non in your streets and besieged your capital ? What 
would have been his fate ? If not shot down in the actual 
perpetration of his guilt, he would have been reserved for 
trial and then hanged ; for, more rigid than the law of 
Rhode Island, our statute of Treason affixes the punish- 
ment of death to that crime. 

Yet the guilt of such a man, in the sight of Heaven 
and in the moral judgment of mankind, would not have 
been half so great, as was that of the man who had a chief 
share in devising the scheme on which the doubtful votes 
were cast, who knew the whole extent to which those 
votes affected his pretensions, and who, upon the rash re- 
sponsibility of his own unexplained assertion that they 
were a genuine foundation of title, proceeded to levy war 
against his country, and to march through the slaughter of 
his fellow citizens to the place of his ambition. 

Secondly^ let us examine the facts which show what 
was done by means of these proxy votes. The Dorr con- 
stitution, in providing the mode in which it was to be 
adopted, permitted any person to vote on the last three 
days by proxy, who ^'•from sickness or other causes,'''' might 
be unable to attend on the three first days of voting. If 
we take the little town of Tiverton, we find that it cast 
for this Constitution, as it is said, 274 votes, of which 131 
were proxies. It is simply incapable of belief that nearly 
one half of the males in that town, who wished to vote 
for this constitution, happened to be unable from " sick- 
ness or other causes" to attend the polls on the first three 
days of voting. There is therefore but one solution of 
the 131 proxies — that many of them were cast in the names 
of persons who were unable to attend because they had no 



25 

existence ; and possibly this was one of the " other causes" 
contemplated by the frainers of this great scheme. It is 
easier to believe that men, who devised a system of great 
adaptedness to frandulent use, should have committed frauds, 
than it is to believe that 131 white males existed in the 
town of Tiverton, who, in a time of most intense excite- 
ment, Avith decided wishes on the subject of that excite- 
ment, had been kept away from the polls three days by 
"sickness or other causes." 

The town of Newport has been mentioned, as the place 
where some investigation was made into the votes said to 
have been cast for the Dorr Constitution. The result of 
that investigation was that out of 1207 votes, 552 were 
improperly given, even on the basis of the friends of that 
instrument. 

This number was composed of the following classes : 
Unnaturalized Foreigners - - - . 251 

United States Soldiers _ _ - _ 53 

Residents of other Towns - - - - 40 

At Sea, at the time of voting, in 17 different 

vessels ------- 56 

Absent from the Town at the time of voting 30 

Minors ------- 16 

Recorded as having voted twice - - - 19 

Voting under variations of the names of resi- 
dents recorded as having previously voted 
in their proper names - - - _ 6 

Names of persons unknown to many of the 
best informed persons in each ward, and 
by them believed not to be inhabitants of 
the city ____-- gj 

Names used without the consent of the 

parties ------- 13 

Colored persons _ _ - _ _ 5* 

Pauper --__-__ 1 

Insane ------- 1 



Total - - 553 
Mr. Jacob Frieze, a citizen of Rhode Island, who was a 
member of the Suffrage Association until he quitted it in 
disgust at their proceedings, gave the foUowing testimony, 
in an affidavit sworn to by him, April 6, 1842. 

* The framers of the People's Constitution never designed to extend 
the right of voting to any but the whiles. 

4 



26 

" During the last three days, or days of proxy voting, 
I was informed by the warden or moderator and clerk, [at 
the 3d ward polls in the city of Providence] that a large 
number of votes were deposited in the ballot box, which 
had been received from seamen and others, then absent, 
previous to their departure ; and I have reason to suppose 
that, from persons who did not attend the polls at all, in 
that ward, some two or thee hundred votes were cast, or 
said to be cast. Similar proceedings, it was understood, 
were had throughout the State." He also says, "No evi- 
dence was required, of the qualification to vote, of any one 
who offered, except his own yea, or nay ; and even of 
foreigners, strangers, or otherwise, no naturalization pa- 
pers, or other evidence of citizenship, was required." 

[Cong. Doc. page 664.] 

Mr. John S. Harris, the Secretary of the " People's Con- 
vention," in a deposition taken by Mr. Hallett, for the 
Committee of Congress, admitted that frauds were com- 
mitted in Newport. " It is but just to say, that there were 
votes received in that town, as I hav^e been informed, 
which ought not to have been." [Cong. Doc. page 104.] 

There is a variety of other facts all conclusively leading 
to the conviction that large numbers of the proxy votes 
must have been fraudulent. 

At the first election held under the so-called People's 
Constitution, when Mr. Dorr was to be voted for by his 
party as Governor, when the whole excitement was una- 
bated, only 6,417 persons voted — a reduction of 7,527 
from the alleged vote for the constitution. The Dorr 
constitution was voted for in December, 1841. When 
in March, 1842, the legal constitution, prepared by order 
of the Legislature, was voted for, it encountered two 
classes of opponents ; first, the suffrage party, who asserted 
that they had already established a constitution over the 
State ; secondly, the " freeholders," who were attached to 
the old form of government and opposed to any change. 
This last class threw about 1,000 votes. Both of these 
classes used great exertions to bring their voters to the 
polls, in order to defeat the legal constitution, and they 
succeeded by a majority of 676. But the whole number 
of votes polled was only 16,702 — for the constitution 
8013— against it 8689, being 5,255 votes less than the 
votes claimed to have been cast for the People's Constitu- 
tion. At the same time that we look at this vast dis- 



27 

crepancy, we should bear in mind that the voting qualifi- 
cation required under this legal Constitution, was the same 
as that required under the People's Constitution, with a 
slight variation which could not, in a State like Rhode 
Island, have made any serious difference in the vote. 
Again — in the town of Newport 1203 votes were claimed 
for the People's Constitution. The aggregate vote of both 
parties on the legal Constitution, three months afterwards, 
was only 1091, and the suffrage party, after the most 
strenuous exertions, cast only 361 votes against it. 

These facts are incapable of any rational explanation 
that can lead to any confidence in the 3,762 proxy votes, 
on which Mr. Dorr took up arms. They show that it is 
impossible that 13,955 voters should ever have existed in 
the State, in favor of the People's Constitution. The re- 
peated tests to which that monstrous assertion was brought 
by these independent but accurate trials, resemble the pro- 
cesses by which a sum in arithmetic is proved or disproved ; 
and it should not be forgotten, when we have arrived at 
this result with regard to Mr. Dorr's proxy votes, that he 
stands affected morally not only with all that he knew at 
the time those votes were cast and counted, but with these 
various proofs of their fraudulent origin ; because these re- 
peated tests of the integrity of those votes had all occurred 
before he took up arms. His attempt to capture the State 
Arsenal, in Providence, was made on the 18th of May, 1842. 

Let any one take these facts and ponder them, and then 
ask himself what does Dorr's case present ? It presents a 
man claiming that 3,762 votes were cast by proxy, in a 
mode which he had helped to devise, and a mode incapa- 
ble of every thing but fraud ; who counted and therefore 
knew how these votes were cast ; who has admitted that 
more or less of them were " questionable ;" who has been 
forever silent as to his real knowledge ; and who had 
demonstration after demonstration forced upon him that 
he was asserting what never had any real existence ; yet 
who, resting solely upon these votes, raised the standard 
of rebellion and levied war upon his native State, and pro- 
posed to shoot his fellow citizens. There is but one ver- 
dict, but one judgment to be rendered in the case, but one 
solution of the facts — that this man knew, and now knows, 
that he was attempting to force down the throats of his 
fellow citizens a great fraud ; that he knew and now 
knows, that his cannon were planted and his men arrayed, 
for the purpose of imposing a great falsehood upon a whole 



28 

l^eople, involving the entire foundations of their rights and 
liberties. He stands before the world a convicted traitor. 
But no great and chivalrous intent lies at the foundation 
of his legal offence ; no dazzling and splendid course, run 
in a bold and free spirit, closes in treason against his coun- 
try. He is now simply a man who sought to enforce 
upon others as truth, what he must have known to be a 
fraud. He is like any other criminal avIio has done the 
same sort of thing — just as worthy of sympathy, public or 
private — just as dignified a sufferer, just as great a martyr. 

It has been no part of my object to embitter the feelings 
of any one against Mr. Dorr. I would not do any thing 
whatever, that might have the slightest effect in putting 
off the day when the sovereign people of Rhode Island 
shall see fit to extend their clemency to him, if that day 
is ever destined to arrive. We, in Massachusetts, have 
nothing to do with his punishment — we can have no re- 
sentments to gratify upon his person. To us he was at 
first merely a man who had committed an atrocious 
offence against a political society of which we are not 
members. He is now paraded before our sympathies as a 
great martyr in the cause of Liberty, and a letter is writ- 
ten from our midst, by a man claiming the position of a 
scholar, a historian, and a candidate for our chief magis- 
tracy, demanding the release of this criminal, in lofty 
phrase, in the name of all holy and elevated things, as of 
an injured man. It is not to be endured, that a single 
mind in Massachusetts that can be reached by the facts, 
should be left exposed to the venom which it pleases the 
writer of that letter to distil. We may forget Mr. Dorr, 
and care nothing about him ; we cannot and ought not to 
forget the man who seeks to pervert our judgments, to daz- 
zle us with his seemingly brilliant periods into compassion 
for guilt, to excite our hatred against those who have stood 
on the outermost bulwark of social order in defence of the 
law. We should remember that all the demagogues on earth 
can give us no compensation for the injury which they do 
by impairing the tone of our own minds. We should ex- 
cuse nothing to a spirit of party, admit no palliatives in a 
politician's tricks of trade ; but fixing the steady eye of an 
unclouded judgment upon every propagator of such false- 
hood, we should make him feel that, however he may 
dress himself in the phrases of a meretricious learning, he 
can impose upon no honest man. 

Of the facts which I have thus laid before you, it would 



29 



seem to be impossible that George Bancroft can be igno- 
rant. Some of his partizans who went from this city to 
attend the mass meeting held at Providence, on the 4th of 
September, for the liberation of Dorr, may have supposed 
that Dorr is a sufferer for his political opinions. Mr. 
Bancroft can be supposed to labor under no such igno- 
rance. The facts of the case exist in a variety of public 
documents and publications, and the most damning of 
them all are contained in the documents collected by his 
friend, B. F. Hallett, for a democratic committee, and 
printed by a democratic majority of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, at Washington. Yet Mr. Bancroft incites his 
fellow citizens to go to the mass meeting, at Providence, 
there, upon the soil of Rhode Island, to abuse, villify and 
insult the government of that State, because it chooses to 
punish a fraudulent violator of the peace ; and the alarm- 
ing feature of all this is, that men can be found in Massa- 
chusetts willing, for the sake of " political capital," to 
go into an independent, sovereign State, and there inter- 
fere with the course and purposes of her criminal justice, 
administered through her own tribunals. We, in Massa- 
chusetts, have nothing whatever to do with Mr. Dorr's 
liberation. If any one has an opinion that leads him 
to desire it, he has a right to express that opinion and 
desire in his own State ; but the moment he goes upon 
the soil of Rhode Island, to express it there, that mo- 
ment he is engaged in an act, within a foreign territory, 
of hostility to the government of that territory ; and 
though he may call it a mere act of sympathy, it is in fact 
a direct interference with the public justice of a country 
whose atiairs he has no right to touch. Equally objec- 
tionable is it, to write letters into another State, to excite 
its people against the judicial acts of their own govern- 
ment ; but when such a letter is written containing a se- 
ries of statements, which exhibit a purpose to confound 
moral distinctions, in the attempt to influence public opin- 
ion against those who have been called to the duty of 
punishing a criminal, the enormity of the sympathy rises 
to a level with that of the crime itself. 

Boston, August 30, 1844. 

Gentlemen — I cannot be at Providence on the 4th of September; but 
my heartiest sympathy goes with you for the liberation of Dorr. 
You may freely concede, that in tlie late efforts of the majority in Rhode 
Island to obtain their inalienable rights, there were faults of conduct on 
both sides; your design still commends itself to humanity and justice. 



30 

For the first time in the history of the world, solitary imprisonment at 
labor for life has been made the punishment of actions that were but the 
expression of political opinions. The position of Dorr was forced upon 
him by the suffrages of many thousands, who, in the judgment against 
him, hear a sentence against themselves, and share his condemnation, 
though not his prison. 

The trial of Dorr was transferred from the neighborhood of his alleged 
offences, to a county of more decided political hostility. In the course of 
the trial his defence was checked by doctrines of law which would make 
the inalienable rights of man ^^belligerent" rights, and would give legal 
perpetuity to despotic authority throughout the world. The jury was se- 
lected with such persevering discrimination, that its verdict, though it 
may serve as a party triumph, cannot be held by impartial men a sufficient 
groundwork for a sentence of civil death. 

The royal charter lingered beyond its usefulness; Dorr did but reveal 
the fact that its life was gone, past all resuscitation even by martial law. 
In the midst of their triumph, its worshippers confessed to one another 
that it was ho|)elessly dead. And shall Dorr be sacrificed to grace its 
funeral .'' Barbarous nations, it is true, slay a captive over the grave of a 
departed chief; but shall their custom be imitated in a civilized and 
Christian land .' 

You may demand the liberation of Dorr in the name of the people of 
Rhode Island, of whose will he had reason to believe himself the servant. 

You may demand it in the name of the American people, who are still 
firm in the faith that government derives its just powers, not from the 
authority of rulers, but from the consent of the governed. 

You may demand it from the wisdum of your intelligent population, 
who must perceive that amnesty is the talisman which alone can restore 
calm to the troubled spirit of your citizens. 

You may demand it under the sanction of legal precedent ; for when 
Leisler, of New York, had, under siuiilar circun. stances, been likewise 
condemned for high treason, the attainder was unconditionally reversed 
by the British parliament, and the reversal was approved by the Legisla- 
ture of New York and by all posterity. 

You may demand it by the influence of generous feeling in every right- 
minded man, who will scorn to wreak needless vengeance on a solitary 
and defenceless individual. 

You may demand it, even of his enemies, in the name of that Christian 
religion which blesses the merciful, serenely rebukes malice, hatred, and 
revenge, and teaches forgiveness to tliose who would be forgiven. 

Nor can his liberation be refused from fear of his partisans. Thejr have 
made themselves citizens under the new constitution. They ask his 
liberation under that constitution, which the act of clemency will itself 
affirm. 

Nor can it be refused on the ground that Dorr himself will not acknowl- 
edge the new constitution. He has acknowledired it, by pleading before 
its tribunals for his life. He has authorized his friends to make no appeal 
for him but in a legal and constitutional way. He is at present at vari- 
ance with his persecutors on nothing but on the light in which past 
transactions should be viewed; and on that the coming generation will 
sit in judgment. 

I know there are many who confess that Dorr should be liberated, and 
yet would not open his prison doors till he condemns himself. But shall 
a man in the nineteenth century, and m an American land, be locked up 
to labor in absolute solitude ; cut off from civil life, without book, or 
journal, or paper; never hearing the voice of a known human being; de- 
barred from intercourse with friends even by letter ; shall he be so con- 
fined for the purpose of breaking his spirit and winning a triumph over 
his sense of hcmor .'' This is not punishment, but torture ; and the civil- 
ized world reprobates the use of torture. It might gradually quench his 



31 

mind, but what a victory that would be for a commonwealth to win over 
one of her own sons ! 

Dorr has made an appeal, as your constitution permits, to the people of 
Rhode Island. Let your purpose in his behalf be as strong as a mother's 
love, which waters cannot quench nor floods drown. At your elections 
raise no question but the unconditional libekation of Dork. Com- 
pel every candidate for every office to make a record of his choice be- 
tween mercy and revenge. Solicit the aid of every man who has any 
thing warm under his left breast. Persevere till, in the legal and consti- 
tutional way, you effect his freedom. Faithfully yours, 

GEORGE BANCROFT. 

To Messrs. Benjamin Cowell, Thomas F. Carpenter, W. R. Danforth, 
Hezekiah Willard, L. C. Eaton, Levi Salisbury, W. S. Surges, Provi- 
dence. 

Seldom will you find more studied insinuations, mark- 
ing a higher degree of depravity in the intention, than are 
here contained. A man of a skilful pen, careful about the 
impressions he should produce, might still have written a 
letter in favor of Dorr's release, without employing ideas 
and statements purely false. BiU Mr. Bancroft seems to 
value and employ ideas as they suit his purposes. "■ The 
late efforts of the majority''' ; ''the punishment of actions 
that were but the expression of political opinions" ; "the 
position of Dorr forced upon him by the suffrages of many 
thousands" ; that the trial was unfair ; that Dorr is sacri- 
ficed to grace the funeral of the charter ; the various lofty 
and holy things in the name of which his liberation may 
be demanded ; the idea that Dorr has submitted himself 
to the new constitution, but that his enemies, not content 
with this, animated by a spirit of persecution, torture him 
both in mind and body ; all these are specimens of a style 
that is possessed in an equal degree by no other dema- 
gogue in this country. 

Mr. Bancroft represents the actions of Dorr as "but the 
expression of political opinions." What some of Mr. Dorr's 
opinions were, we have seen. We have seen that believ- 
ing elections always affected by more or less " questionable 
votes," he devised a system of voting on a constitution 
under which frauds were committed, and then with arms 
and violence sought to make his fellow citizens accept the 
constitution thus voted for. When did Mr. Bancroft ever 
hear of a crime that was not in this way the expression of 
an opinion ? What is all the wrong that has ever vexed 
the world, what is every mean and fraudulent action, 
what is every premeditated villainy, but the expression of 
the opinions of the wrong doer ? A man holds the opin- 
ion that crime may be committed, and he proceeds forth- 



32 



with to its commission. Does his opinion chmjge the 
; r.f th^ npt > Perhaps it has happened to Mr. Ban- 
crTas°he was once !;L'cher, to pr/a?h upon .he great 
doe,nne of Chns.ian mo..ls that out ^^J^J^^s^ 
ceedeth all wickedness. Let hun look back nito nis set 
monr and he will probably find that he has never, with 
Si ht's tint matched the present case for an d ustrat.otr 
of the intimite conirec.ion between a man's acts and Ins 

"^^■The position of Dorr was forced upon hnn," says Mr. 

Bancroft,'" by the suffrages of "-'^ ''Xme for \l^ 
bannv victim! He merely prepared a scheme lori.ic 
Sa ion™f votes which were never cast by real voter , 

nto hi tXtturate position. Cruel voters ! whether you 

--;tS^^raUw:re^ = rr^S- 
his very acts of beneficent creation recoil upon the head 

°'^r tlSlrrs" Dorr's trial will scarcely be believed 
ineuniduue.s Ronr^rnft when the reader re- 

^n thnnah asserted bv Mr- rsancroii, \\ ucu mv. 
2X^\^^^ took- place l^^fo-.'he, S"preme Coin 
Rhode Island— a high tnbtmal, Avhich the tiameis oi iiie 
fo called People's Constitution did not propose to touch 
and wWch tlfey left as they found it, while they proposed 
to remodel every other part of the government^ 

The Idea of domand.ng the \> - on of Dotr m^ the 

other of those pleasing fictions, which flow with so much 
^race and harmony from the pen of the historian. The 
lople of Rhode Island might reply to the demand, to 
Ly could not grant the liberation, --^f ^ M • Do" 
had no better reason to bf.l'«™ 1"^^^ tf «i sen » . 
a coumerfe.ter has to teUeve himself hj^^ se a, 
bank whose note he imdertakes to uttei. in 
manner, when his liberation ts f<'-^^-^^J^ fi™ T the 
the American people because -they ^'^^ .'" f \",:^„„ ,he 
ftith that government derives its just po^^ eis, not irii _ 
Sit W; of rulers, hnt from.tl.e consent of Uje go .ned,^ 
they might very well decline to f^ e tlien ^^^ 

upon the occasion, inasmuch as the faith whicn tn y 



said to hold, teaches them, that government derives no au- 
thority and no existence, from Si part of the governed as- 
piring to govern hy fictitious majoi^ities, never ascertained 
by the law. 

Equally silent might be the wisdom of the intelligent 
population of Rhode Island, when the same demand is 
made from that sanction, upon the ground that " they 
must perceive that amnesty is the talisman which alone 
can restore calm to the tronbled spirit of their citizens ;" 
for, however musical and charming the sentence is, that 
popular wisdom might answer, that it has its doubts about 
enlarging a man who denies the authority of the govern- 
ment of the State, and who, in the course of his asser- 
tion of his own title, collected a band of ruffians that 
expected, in the sack of Providence, to plunder its banks 
and violate its women.* " Legal precedent," too, might 
decline being pressed into the same service ; for it might 
be wholly unable to see how the grant of a pardon to one 
criminal constituted a legal precedent for the grant of it to 
another. Nay, it might admonish the historian, that he 
used language without meaning ; but this, upon second 
thoughts, it would probably waive, considering that the 

* " Whatever were Dorr's intentions, had the city been captured by him, 
we know not. But several gentlemen, residents of the city, were warned 
by others friendly to them, and in the secrets of the camp at Chepachet, 
or assuming and presumed to be so, to leave the city by a certain time ; 
or, if they would not themselves leave, at least to send out their families. 
That many of Dorr's adherents expected the city to be given up to plun- 
der for twenty-four hours, and its fair daughters into their brutal hands, 
is known from their own declarations, and might have been fully appre- 
hendfd from their well known character. And these are men whom 
Dorr himself could not have controlled, had he possessed the inclination 
to do so. The prisoners captured were, most of them, this class of men, 
whose tender mercies would have proved cruelties; and whose triumph, 
had it occurred, no doubt would have been characterised by the most 
ferocious brutality ; for it cannot be disguised, that, by far the greater 
portion of the Dorr party, abandoned by most of the respectable suffrage 
men, had become neither more nor less than an irresponsible and unprin- 
cipled mob. This statement challenges denial; and so true is it, that 
even the officers in command in his camp, and who surrounded his per- 
son, with two or three exceptions, were men with whom no reputable 
person who knew them, even of their own party, would associate. 

In making these statements, the writer has no spleen to vent, and no 
private or party object to advance. They are made because they are 
known to be true ; not only by the writer, but by this whole community ; 
and would, if necessary, be attested by two-thirds of the suflrage party of 
Rhode Island ; and to them he would confidently appeal, for the truth or 
falsity of the foregoing work, as it relates to the doings of that party, and 
the manner in which they have been deceived and imposed on by a (ew 
political demagogues, with Thomas W. Dorr at their head ; and who 
came in at the eleventh hour, to promote tlieir own objects of private am- 
bition." [History of the Suffrage Question, by Jacob Frieze, formerly 
a member of the R. I. Sufirage Association.] 



34 

historian employs language so that it may mean whatever 
it is convenient to have it mean, and is therefore not 
bonnd by the meanings of others. 

The generons feeling of every right-minded man might 
also decline its aid ; for though it would scorn, no doubt, 
to wreak needless vengeance on a solitary and defenceless 
individual, it has been taught that self-defence is a law 
and duty of our being. 

Finally, Christianity itself might refuse to join the 
throng, for it might say that it was busy and could not 
come — busy in teaching men to look for a time when 
fraud, and violence, and bloodshed shall cease ; in teach- 
ing them that prisons and punishments and penalties are 
among her necessary agents in her great work, and that 
rulers are set for a terror to evil doers, and the praise of 
them that do well. 

Mr. Bancroft tells us that Dorr has acknowledged the new 
constitution, by pleading before its tribunals for his life. 
Did he ever read that singular production of wrong-headed 
arrogance and folly— the address made by Dorr to the 
Court, when asked what he had to sa^'-, why sentence 
should not be pronounced ? He found fault with the 
Court, because they would not permit him to set up his 
own authority against that of the government ; and coolly 
informed them that "the process of this Court does not 
reach the man within." 

But Mr. Bancroft, with all his skill as a writer, in the 
very next paragraph of his letter, authorizes all the world 
to believe that Dorr has not acknowledged the authority 
of the government, but that he is kept in prison for this 
reason. All the world knows that if Dorr will acknowl- 
edge the government of the State, and give security to 
keep the peace, he can be enlarged. This he refuses to do. 
" Shall a man in the nineteenth century, and in an 
American land," exclaims Mr. Bancroft, " be locked up to 
labor in absolute solitude" ? Yes, he shall, whenever he 
commits a crime against society. So says the law of most 
countries, in this century ; so it has said in former times, 
and so it will say, to the end of time, unless a better mode 
of checking crime is discovered. Moreover, it has been 
the general opinion of mankind, at all times and in all 
lands — and there seems to be no good reason to make it 
otherwise in the nineteenth century, or in an American 
land — that no crime exceeds that of a man who raises a 
civil war against his country for purposes of his own am- 



35 



bition. If he is compared with the poor wretch who 
forges a promissory note, that takes or threatens no man's 
life, he towers as a giant above a pigmy ; for in his crime 
are involved death and slaughter and public pillage, and 
that last awful outrage which exceeds them all. 

The closing paragraph of this letter is not, as some 
other parts of it are, a fit subject of ridicule. As well 
might the dark malignity that throws a firebrand into a 
neighbor's house, be spoken of in a satirical spirit. There 
is a grave condemnation that must follow the author of 
such a sentiment, in the minds of all thinking men. 
Writing from Massachusetts and addressing the people of 
Rhode Island, Mr. Bancroft tenders to them this advice: 
'•' At your elections, raise no question but the un- 
conditional LIBERATION OF DoRR." Attend to no call of 
your country, take no heed of the great questions of her 
policy, forget her honor and the interests of mankind, 
and, nourishing forever the passions through which that 
convict aimed to mislead you, assert, in the face of history 
and before all the world, that he is an honest and injured 
man, though you know the assertion is untrue. Prostrate 
the dignity of your State before the demands of a faction 
that never would have bestowed a thought upon yoiu- in- 
terests, but for their own purposes. Suffer no old wounds 
to heal ; listen to no voice of reconciliation that comes to 
you from the midst of your own household ; forget no 
one of your errors, but repeat them all ; make strife and 
anger and ill-will the inheritance of your children, and 
fight on till they have grown into the controversy about 
the merits or demerits of a convicted traitor. Do this, 
men of Rhode Island, that I, George Bancroft, in the con- 
tagion of passion and prejudice that spreads from your 
borders into our own Massachusetts, may find the state of 
thought and feeling most subservient to my own ends. 

Mr. Bancroft is pleased to tell us, that "the coming 
generation will sit in judgment" upon past transactions. 
Yes, and there is a judgment of the present age. Slowly, 
but with unerring certainty, it gathers the materials for 
its estimate of character. It passes by, with unfailing 
sagacity, all outward accomplishments, to reach the ijian 
that is behind them. It is not the applause of partizans, 
by which it gauges him. It looks through all that he 
says and does, to see if he knows better than he says and 
does. If it finds that he knows the principles of Liberty, 
but perverts them ; that he reads history to fit it, with a 



36 



specious application, to false issues ; that he can reason 
truly, but chooses to reason falsely ; that he knows the 
power of deception that lies in words and phrases, and 
chooses to employ it on the unreflecting, it records of him 
a judgment which no after age will reverse. The greatest 
earthly injury that a man can do to himself, is to incur that 
judgment ; for it is around him and upon him, like the 
atmosphere, every moment of his life. 



APPENDIX TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

The foregoing pages were written and published from a 
desire to diifuse correct information upon a subject, on 
which there have been and still are deliberate attempts to 
mislead the public mind. Since the first edition of this 
pamphlet was prmted, I have understood that subscrip- 
tions have been promoted among the people of this Com- 
monwealth, by persons in the democratic party, in order 
to raise a fund to defray the expenses of carrying to the 
Supreme Court of the United States certain law-cases 
from the State and Federal courts in Rhode Island, in 
which attempts were made to set up the validity and 
authority of the Dorr government. In these contribu- 
tions, it is said, the donation of each individual is limited 
to twelve cents — a powerful and an artful mode of enlist- 
ing popular sympathy, as well as of raising considerable 
sums. If this statement be true, the fact furnishes an ad- 
ditional motive, to the lovers of truth and sound princi- 
ples, for diffusing both the facts and the true principles, 
widely and in a cheap form. If the people of this Com- 
monwealth are to be subject longer to the delusions which 
politicians of an unscrupulous school find their account 
in encouraging, it will be our own fault if our notions 
■of government and law become so entirely unsettled, that 
our principles will hang about us as loosely as the veriest 
radical can desire. We had far better save our money and 
our common sense ; for, bestowed upon this object, they 
will both be thrown away. 

The facts stated in this pamphlet were all drawn from 
the authentic sources of public documents, chiefly from 
the documents printed by Congress, and from publications 
made by responsible citizens of Rhode Island, and never 
refuted or denied. An Address to the People of the United 
States has since appeared, over the signatures of some of 
the most eminent citizens of Rhode Island, which confirms 
all the facts stated by me upon previous authority. This 
document is signed by Messrs. N. R. Knight and William 
C. Gibbs, former Governors of the State ; by Messrs. Fran- 
cis and Simmons, the present United States Senators from 
Rhode Island ; by Messrs. Cranston, Potter and Tillinghast, 
now or lately members of Congress ; by Mr. John Whipple, 
an eminent lawyer, at the head of the Rhode Island Bar : 
by Professor William G. Goddard, of Brown University ; 
by Albert C. Greene, late Attorney General and Joseph M. 



38 

Blake, the present Attorney General of the State ; by John 
Carter Brown, an eminent merchant, and by several other 
persons, among whom is Moses B. Ives, the hrother-in- 
law of Thomas W. Dorr. 

I cannot but commend the republication of this docu- 
ment to those who desire to correct the tone of public sen- 
timent upon the affairs of Rhode Island. It contains, 
among other things, the following statements. 

13. " Having thus established a Constitution, the people 
of Rhode Island began to hope that their troubles were 
drawing to a close. Both parties registered and voted un- 
der this Constitution, and a number of the Dorr party, 
who were elected to the Legislature, took the oath required 
by the Constitution to support it. At this juncture, T. 
W. Dorr, who had been hanging for some time upon the 
borders of the State, came voluntarily and openly into the 
city of Providence. He was immediately arrested for 
High Treason, in levying war against the State, and com- 
mitted to prison. He had been demanded by the Govern- 
ment of Rhode-Island from the Governors of other States, 
and a large reward had been offered for his apprehension ; 
if coming into the State he had been suffered to go at 
large, without being arrested, what would have been 
thought of the government of Rhode Island?" 

14. " The Constitution of Rhode Island provides. Art. 1, 
Sec. 9, ' That all persons imprisoned ought to be bailed 
by sufficient surety, unless for offences punishable by 
death, or by imprisonment for life, when the proof of guilt 
is evident, or the presumption great.' Treason against 
the State of Rhode Island, by a law passed in 1838, before 
any of these troubles began, was declared " to consist in 
levying war against the same," and was made punishable 
by imprisonment for life. By the law of the United 
States, and of most of the other States, this crime is pun- 
ishable with death. As no Judge could doubt that T. W. 
Dorr had levied war against the State, he could not be ad- 
mitted to bail." 

15. " T. W. Dorr has been tried by merciful Judges, 
and one of the jury which convicted him was one of the 
Convention which framed the Constitution under which 
he claimed to be the rightful Governor. He confessed on 
his trial, and by evidence produced by himself, and drawn 
forth by his own cross-questioning, proved that he per- 
formed those acts of open violence which constituted the 
levying of war. How then could he ask or hope for an 
acquittal, unless the Judges could prove false to that gov- 



39 

eminent under which they held their commissions, and 
which they had sworn to support ?" 

16. " T. W. Dorr was convicted, not under the ' Alge- 
rine act,' as it has been called, but under the act of 1838, 
for levying war against the State ; he has been sent to the 
State prison in pursuance of the same law ; and there he 
remains with no discrimination of treatment from that of 
the other prisoners." 

" When it is considered that the crime of High Treason 
is the greatest crime which can be committed against so- 
ciety, and that it was committed by the levying of war 
against Rhode Island, when there was no pretext which 
could palliate it, and the extension of suflrage had been 
offered and rejected, and another act of the Legislature 
was passed with a view to the same object, we hope, if 
there is to be any sympathy among the citizens of other 
States, in relation to the troubles in Rhode Island, that it 
will be a sympathy for violated law, and a suffering com- 
munity, and not for those who are receiving the punish- 
ment which the law has provided for their offences." 
N. R. KNIGHT, 
WILLIAM SPRAGUE, 
WM. C. GIBBS, 
MOSES BROWN IVES, 
JOHN BROWN FRANCIS, 
JAMES F. SIMMONS, 
HENRY Y. CRANSTON, 
E. R. POTTER, 
JOSEPH L. TILLINGHAST, 
R. B. CRANSTON, 
GEORGE ENGS, 
NATHANIEL S. RUGGLES, 
JOHN WHIPPLE, 
WILLIAM G. GODDARD, 
RICHARD K. RANDOLPH, 
HENRY BOWEN, 
ALBERT C. GREENE, 
JOSEPH M. BLAKE, 
S. FOWLER GARDNER, 
NATHAN B. SPRAGUE, 
JOHN CARTER BROWN, 
ALEXANDER DUNCAN, 
CHARLES JACKSON. 
Providence, October 21, 1844. 



40 

" On the 26th of June, H^U, Mr. Randolph, a Senator 
from Newport, presented to the Senate of Rhode Island, a 
petition from Sullivan Dorr, Esq., praying for the libera- 
tion of his son, Thomas W. Dorr, who had been convicted 
of the crime of treason against said State. Mr. Randolph 
stated that he had had an interview with T. W. Dorr, and 
from that interview he could not support the petition. 
Mr. R. then moved that the petition be laid on the table, 
which motion prevailed. 

At the meeting of the Senate, in the afternoon of the 
same day, Mr. Ballon, a Senator from the town of Cum- 
berland, called the attention of the Senate to the subject. 
He said he had been requested by Mr. T. W. Dorr, ' to 
disclaim all knoivledge of the petition on Ids part, und in 
his name to protest against any action hy the General As- 
sembly 7ipon said petition.^ 

The words above in italic, were reduced by me to writ- 
ing at the time, and shown to Mr. Ballou, who did not ob- 
ject to the same." GEORGE RIVERS, 

Clerk of the Senate of Rhode Island. 

Providence, Oct. 21, IS 44. 

Mr. Randolph has also published a statement, showing 
that after this petition was placed in his hands, he had an 
interview with Dorr and with Mr. Atwell his counsel, in 
which they both endeavored to persuade Dorr to take the 
oath to support the present Constitution of the State, Mr. 
Randolph stating to him that if he would give some assur- 
ance that he would take the oath, he, Mr. Randolph, 
would do all in his power to procure a pardon from the 
General Assembly, before he went to the penitentiary. 
Mr. Randolph states that he told Dorr he was desirous 
that he should not submit to the indignity of going to pri- 
son, and that the law would be vindicated by his convic- 
tion and sentence, if he would take the oath to support the 
Constitution. Mr. R. thus concludes his statement. 

" When I left him, it was understood between us, that he 
would consider the matter, and give me an answer at a 
future time. After reading his father's letter, Mr. Dorr 
requested me to permit him to see the petition. I shewed 
it to him. He was much displeased with it, and was un- 
willing that it should be presented, at the same time he 
asked me if I did present the petition to say that he knew 
nothing of it, and had no hand in its being written or pre- 
sented. On the day but one after, I saw Mr. Atwell and 
he informed me that Mr. Dorr had desired him to say to 



41 

me, that he would do nothing about it, which I understood 
to mean that he would not take the oath." 

" I stated the facts which I have here detailed to the Sen- 
ate, presented the petition and asked that it might lie on 
the table. I remarked, at the time, that I should not ad- 
vocate the petition, unless I had some assurance that if he 
was liberated he would cease to agitate the State on this 
subject." 

"I certify the foregoing to be true." 

RICHARD K. RANDOLPH. 

M' October 23, 1844. 



